Excellent Feature: Free Floating Objects !!

[MadWelshWizard]

Heya Everyone,

You might all be aware of this awesome function but I was ignorant of it until today.

By right-clicking on an object and selecting 'Free floating' it stays in place relative to the game window.

This makes it really useful in my various board game conversions (especially Advanced Heroquest) as I can have characters sheets and the like follow me wherever the action is.

And I also now use it for Heruca's bundled deployment dice. They now follow me wherever I go to on the map/board instead of having to move them around on the map screen !

Used in conjunction with the HIDE function and they become semi transparent so you can see what's underneath as well (esp good for the AH character sheets).

Hope this info is of use to someone.

Craig

[heruca]

LOL! Free-floating objects have been in BRPG since v1.0.5.

It's often good to combine the free-floating feature with the Portrait feature (and even the "Use current token" setting on the Portrait feature).

Here's one example of the former (a reference chart that is always just a click or a mouseover away).

For an example of the latter, take a look at the Chunky Fighters digital game conversion. The entire rulebook is a free-floating object with multiple tokens.

In fact, if you're going to be doing boardgame conversions, you should probably take at least a brief look at all the free game conversions I've made available. Part of the reason I did those is to provide a variety of examples and to try to stimulate ideas for future game conversions created by other Battlegrounds users.

[MadWelshWizard]

Hey Heruca,

The game looks awesome, I hadn't got round to playing it as I'm primarily a solo gamer. No one likes the weirdy games I play

My intruder game is playable but not that pretty and my Source of the Nile (SOTN) is even less seemly so but is an awesome game. I got all 108 cards in as Figures eventually but they slow the program down a bit on my netbook, works fine on my main PC though.

I've been playing it today and making notes and coming up with little potential changes and fixes to make it release-able on BGG and BRPG forums. The miniature game reference files as floating under the Battlegrounds B which in turn show the Portrait is a brilliant idea ! I'd done something similar with creature cards in Advanced Heroquest but hadn't worked out the heroes character cards.

Also hadn't dawned on me until today I can create 1 object of all numbers 0-9 as tokens so I can amend stats on the fly. Another great function.

The dice rolling is the main thing I'm getting used to, I was trying to get too much into an automated roll (especially in SOTN as it's very chart heavy) but am now using it with the Reference tab so you manually have to check charts. This doesn't really slow things down at all.

I got all the files, including PNG's of all the tables off BGG but may redesign them into something a bit shinier. The game is awesome but the card drawing mechanism is a bit cumbersome. I was thinking about inputting all 108 entires of the cards into a several custom Dice Tables. I know that means you may get the same result more often than every 108 cards but in the game it's possible to have to draw 4 or 5 cards a turn anyway so you could be getting doublers by turn 20. I don't suppose there's a way to fudge the die roller so once a specific number is rolled it won't be rolled again until all results are used up ?

C.

[heruca]

Hint: Turn on "Antialias" for all your charts, tables, and free-floating objects. It'll look a lot better.

You can probably use the free Hexographer program to make a slick-looking map for this game fairly quickly.

[MadWelshWizard]

Hey Heruca,

Antialias does indeed make things look pretty

In Hexographer how big should I make the hexes to get them to fit exactly into BRPG ? I tried 122 by 122 but they looked weird.

Awesome piece of free software too, I'm going to redo the map as you suggested using it.

Thanks,

Craig

[heruca]

The dice rolling is the main thing I'm getting used to, I was trying to get too much into an automated roll (especially in SOTN as it's very chart heavy) but am now using it with the Reference tab so you manually have to check charts. This doesn't really slow things down at all.

It's often a judgment call. Do you go for the automation, with die evaluations, look-up tables, etc.? Or do you go for speed and simplicity (die objects in the map window, and free-floating objects to reference charts & tables)?

I don't suppose there's a way to fudge the die roller so once a specific number is rolled it won't be rolled again until all results are used up?

Afraid not.

Have you tried card decks on the map window, rather than in the Card Table window?

[heruca]

In Hexographer how big should I make the hexes to get them to fit exactly into BRPG ? I tried 122 by 122 but they looked weird

The map appears to be 24 hexes across. If each hex is 122 pixels across, the width of the map will be 2928 pixels (24 x 122).

If you tell BRPG to "Maintain aspect ratio" in the Map Settings panel, the vertical dimensions of your map will be set automatically.

[MadWelshWizard]

Hey Heruca,

Any chance you can help ?

I have made my map in Hexographer but I cannot for the life of me get it to match the hexes in Battlegrounds.

I know I have to shrink/expand the px in both horizontal and vertical but it just won't match up.

I've attached the PNG of the map from Hexographer.

Thanks,

Craig

[heruca]

There seems to be some sort of bug when resizing maps on a hex grid when offsets are not set to zero (and/or when fractional cells are used). Will look into it.

I think a different sizing algorithm is being used during previews shown while using the Map Settings panel, and post-zoom map rendering, because if I line things up perfectly in the Map Settings panel, it goes wonky after I zoom in or out.

[heruca]

This is the closest I can get it until the bug is fixed. It may not look correct when you first load it, but it should look close to perfect after changing the zoom level at least once.

[MadWelshWizard]

Hey Heruca,

That's perfect ! Thank you. If I set everything up and save the Asserts and Encounter will it keep the aspect ratio for the map ?

I'm doing the terrain hex objects today and have been thinking about remaking the cards but using images from the new board on them to show requirements instead of words. Might take a fair few hours but would look pretty good I think.

C.

[heruca]

If I set everything up and save the Asserts and Encounter will it keep the aspect ratio for the map?

Yes, the map dimensions will be preserved, although I think anyone opening the Encounter will need to change the zoom level at least once to see everything at its proper size.

[MadWelshWizard]

Hey Heruca,

It's coming together, I've attached a screen grab of how things look. You can see the Terrain Hex Objects in the centre.

One thing I'd like to request as a future feature (as I don't think it can be done at the moment) is the ability either Stack and Shuffle objects or to make Figures free floating.

My plan is to have the card deck free floating next to the logo but this can't be done at the moment as the cards need to be figures for stack and shuffle.

Later today I'm going to see if I can make up a workable expedition log off to one side of the map using a set view and multiple token numbers (0-9).

Laters,

Craig

[MadWelshWizard]

Scratch that I have discovered you can stack and shuffle objects just not if they have been tagged as free floating.

Is there a way to enable grouping and stack/shuffling of free floating objects ?

*two minutes later*

Aha, more playing around shows I can but I have to shift click each one, I can't drag a box round them. Can this be enabled ?

C.

[heruca]

There is currently a maximum of 12 free-floating objects, so you wouldn't be able to have a very large deck, anyway, with the method you were planning.

I suggest placing an object-based deck somewhere in the map window, perhaps even far away from the mapboard, and then defining a "Deck" View for it. This will give you one-click access to your deck (or, if you prefer, one-hotkey access). I am assuming that for some reason you don't want to use the Card Table.

Figures can't be free-floating. Makes no sense.

The selection marquee has been especially tweaked so that it ignores free-floating objects. More often than not, that is the desired behavior. Shift-clicking them individually to add them to the current selection is still possible, however.

Your game is looking good. What a difference a nice map makes.

[MadWelshWizard]

Heya Heruca,

I have decided to go for the card window after testing both. The Shift-C hotkey makes it nice and easy to pop up mid game.

I've also designed a new card layout, attached to this post. I decided to use artwork from the new board instead of plain text as it looks much better and brings the game together quite nicely.

C.

[heruca]

Looking good. The images liven up a lot.

Watch out for too-small text, though. People with hi-res displays won't be able to read those cards.

Also keep in mind that custom card decks whose cards are over 200 pixels wide will be displayed in the Card Table in landscape orientation.